MPD sent this out:

Dear Customer

As you may have read in the press, we’re sorry to confirm that delivery of your new Nokia N900 stock has been delayed to mid November – Our N900 stock when it arrives will be the first in the UK and orders will be dispatched on a first ordered, first served basis directly from our Nokia stores. Be assured that you are top of the dispatch list for a new Nokia N900 and you will not get the N900 anywhere else before this date, which for the moment is exclusive to Nokia direct sales channels.

Please accept our sincere apologies for this short delay and we thank you for your patience. Having read several reviews and personally used a pre-production N900 running with Maemo 5 operating system, be assured that the new Nokia N900 will be very much worth the short wait.

If you would like to discuss your pending order please email us at webshop@mobilephonesdirect.co.uk. For more details of the Nokia N900 please visit our new Nokia Retail website www.nokiaretail.co.uk or our main website at www.mobilephonesdirect.co.uk

and the day before they told me:

Hi,

Delivery of Nokia N900 stock into our Nokia stores has unfortunately been delayed by two weeks to w/c 16th November.

So I think they are shipping on the 15th/16th.

They have always given the correct release dates (as far a nokia has told them). The 30th, and now the 15th. I don't know why people are thinking the phone is going to ship sooner than this... well maybe if you ordered directly from Nokia. But amazon UK wasn't going to ship sooner than the 15th. I would blame amazon for not having the correct dates listed, and not Nokia.